The World Health Organization (WHO) today publishes guidelines for the cultivation and collection of Artemisia annua L, a Chinese traditional medicinal plant which is the source of artemisinin, used to produce the most effective medicines for malaria. The guidelines will contribute to improving the quality of Artemisia annua L to further develop artemisinin-based medicines, and help ensure a sustainable supply to meet market demand.

Artemisia annua L, used in Chinese traditional medicine for centuries, is today considered part of the solution where malaria has become resistant to other medicines. Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) have been recommended by WHO since 2001 in all countries where falciparum malaria - the most resistant form of the disease - is endemic. 

Are countries doing enough to reduce the negative effects of unhealthy environments on children? Preparations are now under way for an intergovernmental review, to take place on 13–15 June in Vienna, Austria. Countries in the WHO European Region will assess their progress in implementing the commitments that they made in the Children’s Environment and Health Action Plan for Europe (CEHAPE), adopted at the Fourth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health in 2004.

This week, Member States set the agenda for the Vienna review at the twenty-third meeting of the European Environment and Health Committee (EEHC) in Brussels, Belgium. In addition, Member States and stakeholders discussed the latest developments in organizing the review and made decisions on how to carry forward the European environment and health process. 

New rules also proposed for elephant ivory and dozens of threatened plants and animals

The Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has published a provisional scientific and technical assessment of some 40 new government proposals for amending wildlife trade rules. Governments will accept or reject these proposals at the next triennial CITES conference, to be held in The Hague from 3 to 15 June.

Many of the proposals reflect growing international concern about the accelerating destruction of the world's marine and forest resources through overfishing and excessive logging. Others seek to advance the protection or sustainable use of diverse plants, reptiles, birds and mammals. Still others aim to recognize conservation successes by removing from the CITES Appendices species that are no longer endangered.

Are bigger bones stronger bones? Not necessarily, according to a recent NASA study that seeks to ensure healthy bones in astronauts.

A four-year study of the long-term effects of microgravity on the bones of International Space Station crew members showed that the astronauts, on average, lost roughly 11 percent of their total hip bone mass over the course of their mission.

The study also found that a year after each crew member had returned to Earth, much of their lost bone mass was replaced. However, the bone structure and density had not returned to normal and signs of hip strength had not recovered at one year, although it had increased slightly compared to post-flight levels. Researchers say it could take much longer than a year to regain the lost strength.

Customs Officers Intercept Illegal Ozone Damaging Substances Under UNEP-Backed Project Skyhole Patching
A new initiative to monitor and curb illegal trade in chemicals that damage the ozone layer-- the Earth’s protective shield-- has begun registering some of it first promising results.
Today it was announced that seizures of up to 64.8 tons of illegal ozone depleting substance (ODS) have been reported in China, India, Thailand and other countries following the start of Project Skyhole Patching.


China Customs seized nearly 8.2 tons of Dichlorodifluoromethane (CFC-12), used in refrigerant and air conditioning systems, in the Guandong Province between September and November 2006 – 752 kg in Shengzhen and 7.5 tons in Huanpu Port.
In West Bengal, India, customs and enforcement officials seized nearly 6 tons of illegal chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) between October and November 2006. Nearly 49 tones of illegal ODS were seized from other countries participating. More is expected to come.
“Months after he attended a workshop in Wuxi, China, a Chinese customs officer in Huanpu Port intercepted the illegal ODS using methods he learned there. It is encouraging to see that our training efforts, involving customs and enforcement officers in the 18 participating countries is beginning to have payoffs,” said Ms. Ludgarde Coppens, Policy and Enforcement Officer, UNEP.
Project Skyhole Patching, to combat illegal trade in ODS and hazardous waste in the Asia Pacific region began 1 September 2006. It involves 20 customs and environmental authorities from 18 countries, including Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Fiji, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, the Maldives, Mongolia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Samoa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Viet Nam.

Cabestana cutacea (Linné, 1767) è un Ranellidae Recente, distribuito nel bacino mediterraneo e nell’Oceano Atlantico orientale (B.D.D., 1882), comprese Isole Canarie, Madera e Azzorre ( Poppe & Goto, 1991). Lo scopo di questa nota è evidenziare le varie forme con cui questo gasteropode si manifesta.

Nonostante sia abbastanza conosciuto, è considerata specie non comune o localmente rara, di fatto questo Ranellidae si esprime con una morfologia piuttosto variabile, con caratteri particolari della teleoconca tipici delle varie popolazioni esaminate, ma che possono essere riconducibile ad un unico taxon.

SISTEMATICA

• Superfamiglia TONNOIDEA Suter, 1913
• Famiglia Ranellidae Gray J.E., 1854
• Sottofamiglia Cymatiinae Iredale, 1913
• Genere Cabestana Roeding, 1798
• Specie Cabestana cutacea (Linné, 1767)

• Sinonimia (Sabelli et al., 1990-1992a, b):
• Tritonium curta (Locard, 1886)
• Tritonium danieli (locard, 1886)
• Triton gernum (De Gregorio, 1885) - var.
• Triton isgurum (De Gregorio, 1885) - var.
• Ranella lemania (Risso, 1826)
• Ranella tuberculata (Risso, 1826)
• Murex succincta (Risso, 1826)

La ricca sinonimia e le varietà descritte nel passato da alcuni Autori che contraddistinguono C. cutacea sono probabilmente dovute proprio alle varie forme popolazionali con le quali la specie si esprime. Senza dubbio, all’interno del taxon, si possono reperire esemplari con diverse morfologie, ma che devono essere considerate prive di concreto valore sistematico.

Vengono raffigurati alcuni morpha, la cui diversità risulta molto evidente, sia come habitus, che come scultura generale. Alcune forme si presentano tanto particolari da poter indurre in errore facendole attribuire a Cabestana doliaria (Linné, 1767), specie West africana segnalata anche per le Isole Canarie, e che sembrerebbe essere presente anche in Mediterraneo nel Mare d’Alboran (Beu, 1985; Poppe & Goto, 1991), ma ufficialmente non confermata con sicurezza per questa area. C. doliaria si distingue facilmente da C. cutacea per le dimensioni nettamente inferiori, per la forma meno snella e più rigonfia, per la diversità di scultura con interspazi larghi e scultura spirale più tubercolata, e per il periostraco fibroso, più spesso e di colore marroncino scuro, mentre quello di C. cutanea è sericeo, semitrasparente e color giallo senape.

Tuttavia qualche esemplare di quest’ultima specie, a scultura più esaltata e di forma robusta, potrebbe essere confuso a prima vista con C. doliaria. Ma un’analisi complessiva delle caratteristiche morfologiche delle due specie possono farle separare agevolmente.

La morfologia di C. cutacea può variare tra due forme principali che rappresentano degli estremi: esemplari allungati, di forma elegante con scultura poco esaltata ed individui più corti, inflati con scultura più evidente è più robusta. Ma a conferma che in realtà la specie è da considerarsi unica sono le forme di passaggio intermedie, che consentono un continuum tra le due forme estreme.

Fig.1 - Cabestana cutacea (Linné, 1767). Forma elongata, mm 44 x 81. Tor Valdaliga, Civitavecchia, Lazio, 25m. Veduta boccale.

Fig.2 - C. cutacea (Linné, 1767). Esemplare fig. 1, veduta dorsale.

Fig.3 - C. cutacea (Linné, 1767). mm 42 x 65. Santa Marinella Porto, Lazio, ex reti. Veduta boccale.

Fig.4 - Cabestana cutacea (Linné, 1767). Esemplare fig. 3, veduta dorsale.

Fig.5 - C. cutacea (Linné, 1767). Forma curta, mm 43 x 55. Montalto di Castro, Lazio, 30 m. veduta boccale.

Fig.6 - C. cutacea (Linné, 1767). Esemplare fig. 5, veduta dorsale

Fig. 7 – C. cutacea (Linné, 1767). mm 47 x 68. Lazzaro (RC), Calabria, 25 m. veduta boccale.

Fig. 8 – C. cutacea (Linné, 1767). Esemplare fig. 7, veduta dorsale.

Fig. 9 – C. cutacea (Linné, 1767). mm 40 x 60. Lazzaro (RC), Calabria, 25 m. varietà albina, veduta boccale.

Fig. 10 – C. cutacea (Linné, 1767). Esemplare fig. 7, veduta dorsale.

Fig. 11 – C. cutacea (Linné, 1767). mm 40 x 53. Sorrento, Campania, spiaggiato. Esemplare sprovvisto di varice, veduta boccale.

Fig. 12 – C. cutacea (Linné, 1767). Esemplare fig. 11, veduta dorsale.

Fig. 13 – C. doliaria (Linné, 1767). mm 28 x 37. Cabo Negro, Marocco, spiaggiato, veduta boccale.

Fig. 14 – C. doliaria (Linné, 1767). Esemplare fig. 13, veduta dorsale.

Information about the builders of two instruments has been addded in the last paragraph.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft this month is set to surpass the record for the most science data returned by any Mars spacecraft. While the mission continues to produce data at record levels, engineers are examining why two instruments are intermittently not performing entirely as planned. All other spacecraft instruments are operating normally and continue to return science data.

Since beginning its primary science phase in November 2006, the orbiter has returned enough data to fill nearly 1,000 CD-ROMs. This ties the record for Mars data sent back between 1997 and 2006 by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor mission.

On 17 January 2007, the Parties to the Protocol on Water and Health to the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes are meeting in Geneva for the first time. Their goal is to translate into action the Protocol’s provisions for the coming three years. The meeting is expected to launch ambitious programmes to prevent, control and reduce water-related diseases.

“This meeting of the Protocol Parties represents a key step of a process intended to increase the number of European citizens with access to safe drinking-water and basic sanitation,” says Dr. Roberto Bertollini, Director of the Special Programme for Health and Environment of the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe. “Access to safe water is a basic human right ensuring the physical and social well-being of populations, but it is still not attained in today’s Europe. How can we accept to lose 37 of our children to diarrhoea each day for lack of access to safe water? We therefore call on all countries to be bold in the adoption of an Action Plan that will significantly reduce the current water-related disease burden.”

Integral catches a new erupting black hole

27 November 2006


ESA's gamma-ray observatory, Integral, has spotted a rare kind of gamma-ray outburst. The vast explosion of energy allowed astronomers to pinpoint a possible black hole in our Galaxy.

The outburst was discovered on 17 September 2006 by staff at the Integral Science Data Centre (ISDC), Versoix, Switzerland. Inside the ISDC, astronomers constantly monitor the data coming down from Integral because they know the sky at gamma-ray wavelengths can be a swiftly changing place.

The UN refugee agency and the World Food Programme on Monday appealed for the rapid restoration of order in volatile eastern Chad following weekend unrest in which mobs looted warehouses storing vital aid supplies for hundreds of thousands of Darfurian refugees and Chadians.


Both agencies reported that their main warehouses in the eastern Chad town of Abeche, the hub for relief efforts for 218,000 refugees from Sudan's neighbouring Darfur region and some 90,000 internally displaced Chadians, had been pillaged, reportedly by local residents, during the turmoil on Saturday and Sunday. Abeche was occupied by rebel forces on Saturday, then re-taken by government troops on Sunday.